


Cooldown - A Response to Regimen

by artemisscribe



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Because Red gets under my skin, M/M, and her fic is so good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 20:04:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8591704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemisscribe/pseuds/artemisscribe
Summary: Jeff just needs a minute.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ScribeOfRED](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribeOfRED/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Regimen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5807401) by [ScribeOfRED](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribeOfRED/pseuds/ScribeOfRED). 



Every muscle in Jeff’s body is on fire. His heart pounds like it’s going to burst out of his chest. His arms are so weak it’s all he can do to rest them on the side of the pool as he catches his breath in short ragged panting gulps. He rests his cheek on the mercifully cool limestone that edges the pool and closes his eyes as he tries to regulate his breathing and slow his heart rate back down.

It’s not a noise that he notices; his ears are too full of the sound of his own pulse and the distant splash of Gordon still turning laps at a punishing rate. It’s more an awareness of another presence, a prickling on the back of his neck, that makes him open his eyes. There in front of him is a pair of familiar bare feet.

“Morning Kyrano” Jeff croaks, still a little hoarse with exertion.

“Foolish old man” Kyrano tuts, shaking his head, though his pretend disappointment is given away by his amused little smile,

“ _Old_ man?” Jeff says, raising an eyebrow at his friend, “I’m younger than you.”

“Are you?”

To an outsider Kyrano’s tone would be neutral but Jeff knows it to be a challenge, bait even. The sort of thing he normally skirts around with his closest confidante, but he’s in a playful mood this morning, so he bites.

“I have seen your ID papers, you know” he says,

“My real ones?” Kyrano smiles a small sly smile as Jeff narrows his eyes at him,

“I’m sorry,” Jeff says, reaching up a hand to Kyrano, “You seem to have mistaken me for one of my very gullible children.”

“And here I thought I was talking to their idiot of a father,” Kyrano replies, taking Jeff’s outstretched hand and easily hauling him up out of the pool to sit on the side, “Who thinks he can still keep up with a fifteen year old world champion swimmer.”

“It’s not about keeping up,” Jeff says, “It’s about him getting to beat me. Pass me a towel would you?”

Kyrano fetches a towel from the pile on the nearby sun lounger and unceremoniously dumps it over Jeff’s head before sitting down cross-legged beside his friend at the pool’s edge. He waits for Jeff to dry off his hair and emerge from under the towel. Here, tanned, relaxed and slightly rumpled, Jeff almost looks like the young man he used to be, if not for the grey hair and the softened physique and the bruise-dark circles under his eyes. Kyrano can almost trick himself into believing they are young men again. But they are not young men. That joyous burden belongs to the boy in the pool, and his brothers sleeping upstairs in the house.

“So you’re letting him win are you?” Kyrano asks, disbelieving as he watches Gordon’s relentless progress up and down the pool,

“God no!” Jeff laughs, dangling one foot back in the water, “He’s beating me fair and square. I need him to know he can do that though.”

“Sons measure themselves against their fathers” Kyrano says with a sadness that Jeff doesn’t press, but does file away for a later date.

“My sons especially” Jeff agrees, looking back out at Gordon, before frowning slightly “Although this one not so much.”

“Has he even noticed that you’ve stopped?” Kyrano asks, bemused.

“That boy wouldn’t notice anything unless it’s chlorinated.” Jeff says, shaking his head, “Or covered in bacon.”

“First breakfast?” Kyrano asks, taking a knowing glance at the dawn light creeping over the horizon, there’ll be at least three rounds of food in this house before anyone even mentions the word lunch.

“Good idea,” Jeff agrees, “Scott’ll be up any second and God help us if that coffee pot isn’t ready to go.”


End file.
